Episode 218: Your Closet Is Not The Problem

The Silent Partner Private Podcast Series 

The Wardrobe Reset 

Your closet isn’t sabotaging you. It’s telling the truth about where you are and what you’ve been carrying. I’m getting personal about how a knee injury and the long road back to mobility shook my self-trust, changed my body, and left me staring at the mirror thinking, I don’t like what I see. If you’re navigating midlife, perimenopause or menopause weight gain, shifting roles at work, or a brand-new chapter at home, that disconnect can show up first when you try to get dressed.

It’s not because you need more clothes. It’s because you need clarity and a wardrobe system that supports you. I explain why your closet should be your silent partner and how it can become one of the few things you truly control, including how you see yourself and how others see you.

Subscribe to my Silent Partner Private Podcast. It is a 5 episode podcast that explains why it’s important to build a wardrobe/ closet that supports you.

Youtube 

Instagram 

Transcript

Welcome And Personal Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Everyday Icon Style Podcast, a podcast that teaches you how to build Tiffany. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Everyday Icon Style Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Tiffany, and in today's episode, I'm going to get a little bit personal. And I'm going to get personal because I want to talk to you about when I realized that my closet was not the problem at all. And a lot of times we think that our closet is the problem, the clothes in it, the size of the closet. But it's actually not at all. We are the problem. But not in a bad way. It's more so in a way that you are trying to tell yourself or yourself is trying to tell you that hey, we need to do some changing. And doesn't matter how many clothes you have in the closet, which you go out and buy, the many screenshots that you may have, that is not and it will never solve the problem. So let's go ahead and let's dive on in to today's episode.

Injury, Mobility Loss, Self Trust

SPEAKER_00 1:19

In November of last year, while standing up, I'll I guess I'll put it up to old age. Um, I tore my meniscus and I had already had a problem with the meniscus and I had had it fixed years ago. But this time it really broke. Now, when that happened, I thought, oh, you know what, I'll be up in a couple of weeks and I'll be back to normal. Well, that wasn't actually the case. I was down from November until probably about May of this year because I was going through rehab and I also had to learn in a sense how to kind of walk again, even though I could and put pressure on it. Well, during that time, and rightfully so, I wasn't even thinking about how I was dressing when I woke up in the morning. Because let me be very honest with you, and many of you have gone through this. You get up, you just throw in anything. And the great thing was I was working from home, but not in the greatest of mindsets. So for me, getting up out of bed and putting on a t-shirt and some shorts or some sweatpants was as good as it was going to get for me. And that was where I, as I was building self-trust again with myself throughout that year, this really broke my self-trust with myself because it was hard. And it wasn't self-trust in the way of a job or whether or not to go out or have fun or anything like that. No, this was self-trust with my body, because my body had let me down in a way that it has never let me down before. My mobility. So everything else, including my style, because I was also in the process of revamping it and doing that in the before that, everything, everything literally went by the wayside. So I wasn't thinking about style, I wasn't thinking about um even creating the podcast, I wasn't thinking about anything because I had lost self-trust with myself and I was mourning the loss of the mobility at that time, with the possibility of having to go through a full knee replacement surgery, which I wasn't wild about, but we found other options, which is a great thing. And then in that process, my body changed. So now when I wasn't really gaining a lot of weight, I've gained a couple pounds. And all of that piles on and piles on. And what you realizes is that from that point, when I finally did start to figure out my style, is I still am in the process of trying to build self-trust just with my body. I also have to build self-trust with my style because once I really looked at myself in the mirror and still look at myself in the mirror, I don't like what I see. And I don't like the style that I have, I don't like what I feel like sometimes. And I'm still trying to build self-trust with my body. And that is usually the one fight, especially when you're between my age range of between 45 and older. You have to fight with your body because you're fighting the hormones, you're fighting any other ailments that you may have had prior to. Life is changing, jobs are changing, children are going away to school, so you're possibly becoming an empty nester, and you may not quite be sure what it is that you want to do in this next chapter. And every time you get dressed, you don't like what you

Why The Closet Is Not It

SPEAKER_00 5:25

see, and you feel like my clothes are letting me down. But I want to remind you, this has nothing to do with your clothes. This has to do with you, and this has to do with how you will see yourself in this next chapter and this next phase of your life. And I've been seeing through social media, especially women within our age range, I'm seeing how they are vibrant, how their style has definitely changed, probably from how they were years ago to now. Because now I believe, especially as you get creep closer to 50 and enter into 50, everything kind of like a s another switch kind of comes on in your head to where I can really do whatever it is that I want to do and look how I want to look. So with all of that, I've had to process a lot. And I've had to process two things that I've had to process with finding self-trust again. But when I started to think about it and look at the clothes, I said, this isn't about the cloth. This has nothing to do with the clothes. This has everything to do with me. And the reason why my closet doesn't support me the way that it should is because the closet does not reflect who I am evolving into. And I really hate like using that, but we're always evolving and changing. And sometimes we don't, as we're going through the ebbs and flows of evolving and changing and going into a new chapter, one of the very last things we think about is how we look in our style. Because you might be in a season like I am to where I don't like what I see in the mirror. Even though people say, Oh, you look good for everything that you're going through and all this and whatever, and you're walking better and you're walking faster. I went and got my hair done yesterday, and one of the hairstylists said, You're looking good, you're moving faster, you're looking better, you know, you're maneuvering a little bit better. And all I could say was, Thank you. Like even the postman that delivers mail here to my complex said the same thing when I was walking to the gym. Well, I can see you're walking faster. Everybody can say that, but you have to kind of feel it. And sometimes that doesn't connect. And it's the same thing with your closet. You no longer connect with your closet. Because I want to remind you that your closet is literally your partner, it is your silent partner that helps get you through every single day to help you look and feel your best. And when you're disconnected from your closet like I am, and I really don't have a lot of clothes at all, that's where we get stuck. And we have to kind of break through that stuckness that you're feeling. And I'm going to walk you through how you will begin to unstuck yourself when it comes to your personal style.

The Shopping Cycle That Fails

SPEAKER_00 8:35

During this time, I had to ask myself, what is the real issue and my real frustration when it comes to why I can never get my style together. And I always used to think, oh, I'll just go out and buy more clothes. It's just a new outfit. It was always, what should I buy next? And I went through that cycle time after time after time after time again. And when I really think about it over the my entire lifespan from when I've started to buy clothes and all the things like that, I've realized I never bought for myself. I bought for an event, a period in time, probably trendy pieces. But we don't really think about that at that moment in time. We're just in the midst of it, and we're just buying and buying, or sometimes, and I was really, I think this was my thing. I buy on impulse. Well, I've really curved that a little bit, but I would buy on impulse, and impulse looks like, I'm bored. This looks nice, I'll buy this. Or this looks cute. I think I have a shirt for this, but if not, I'll buy one later on and you never do. So then you just have a messy collection where nothing ever went together, everything was kind of pieced together. Or if you're old enough and you used to go to um TJ Maxx used to sell them a lot, and I think a lot of the big department stores used to sell them too when we were going to work, they would have the blazer, the pants, and the skirt to go along with it. Now the skirts I rarely wore because the skirts were old lady-ish, grandmama-ish. Actually, the whole suit kind of was, but that's what we had to wear for work. And even I thought buying those many moons ago was easy. But it still didn't fit who I was. It meant and it really was supposed to fit for work, but even for me, it still didn't like go with what I wanted. And I also believe I got so caught up in what I thought I was going to be and look like. And I thought I was going to be a marketing executive, and then I thought, well, you know what? I'm going to be a wealth manager, I'm going to go work in wealth management and all the things, especially when I was starting my career in banking. So all of these things, I was trying to fit into what I thought I was going to end up doing as a career, which never happened. And we all get in caught up in that of, I'm going to be this. So I have to dress for this. You know

Dressing For A Future That Changed

SPEAKER_00 11:30

how they always say, dress for the job you want, not for the job you have. We may think that's the job we want, and we may get that job, but it may not necessarily be where we're supposed to be, because that's what we're thinking we're supposed to be. Well, here I am now as an executive assistant. And throughout the years, things have gotten a little bit not lax, but we've they've introduced through my time of working, my 20 year plus years of working, casual Fridays, and then it went from Fridays to where I remember when I was working at the bank. Um, I was we had to pay like five or ten dollars because it always went for a good cause for genes. And so it kind of put us all in a flux. And I come come from an era where that's literally how we we dressed to go out, like we had to be at work the next day, even though we did have to be at work the next day. So now it's sort of like what are the questions? What do I have to ask myself at this stage in the in the in life? Because back then it was dictated what we were to wear. Well, now we're at a place where guess what? Nobody's dictating what we have to wear anymore. We don't have to be cookie cutter anymore. So, where does this frustration come from? Well, for me, my frustration now comes from my knee and having to trust myself with that again and not looking right in clothes per se, because I can't wear the shoes that I want to wear. Two, how I look because of the injury, I have gained weight, and probably there's some perimenopause menopause weight gain in there as well. Three, I still at one point impulse by, or then I don't buy at all, and I really haven't bought anything at all when it comes to clothes. So, how do I get out of this? And what is the thing that I have to realize and understand?

Closet As Mirror Of The Blah

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Your current closet is a reflection of who you are and who you've been. And when you realize and begin to understand this, you also begin to understand you don't have a cohesive wardrobe. You have a collection of things that you've purchased along the way. Some of them are good purchases, some of them are bad and horrible purchases. The horrible purchases, the ones that you don't wear that still have the tags on them, the ones that you said, I'm going to get into this or wear this one day, and you never did, and you never will. All of this, your closet is a reflection of who we are. So if I were to look into my closet now, and it has is the emptiest that it has ever been, trust me, it's bare and it's blah. And it reflects how I feel about myself. Bare and blah. And I have to address where the blah is coming from, which I have, and what it is that I want to do and how I want to turn the blah around. And it's okay to feel blah. It's okay to feel I don't like what I see in the mirror. I think a lot of times we're told, oh, don't ever think that way about yourself. It's okay. The issue becomes we stay stuck there, and I've stayed stuck there for a while. And in a little bit of it, I do have some, you know, it is warranted that I am stuck where I am. But as I become unstuck from my injury and all the other things, it's like, huh, how do I want to see myself? And you get to pick that and dictate that moving forward. Because we need to build a closet that literally supports us, and I touched on it previously, but but when you have a closet that supports you, a closet that supports you looks like this. It looks like you enjoy getting dressed again. You're not standing there trying to figure out what the hell am I going to wear today because you have a whole closet full of clothes that nothing fits or goes together. It's a it's a place that you have where it's, I like to say it's sort of like a crypt or an archive of your past and former lives and seasons of your life. And it hasn't caught up to where you are now. And now, granted, I get it, life gets in the way. But we stay stuck in there and we're always trying to figure out there's something wrong, but I can't put my finger on it. The something wrong is your closet because your closet is your silent partner. It is the one thing out of everything in our lives that we get to control. We get to control how we see ourselves, we get to control how others see us. And if your closet is just a collection of stuff, then that's how they're going to see you. And that's how you are going to see yourself. So always remember when you walk in there and you're like, I don't like what I have in here. It has nothing to do with the clothes, but it has everything to do with you. And you get to pick and choose how it is you want to move moving forward because your closet is a mirror and it is a reflection of how you see yourself and how you feel. And when we get stuck there and stuck there long enough, it becomes very hard to climb out of it. And sometimes by the time we realize we're stuck, it might be a year or two years in. So the great thing for me coming out of it is I can address the problem. And once I addressed that problem, now I kind of know exactly what to do next.

The Silent Partner Private Podcast

SPEAKER_00 18:07

So I hope you're enjoying the video so far, but I want to take a quick break and talk to you about the silent partner. And then when talking about the silent partner, I am talking about your closet. Your closet is the one place that will always support you in any of your endeavors, personal, professional, and everything in between. And right now you're probably thinking, my closet isn't supporting me at all. Guess what? Neither is mine, and that is okay. So I created this five-part process so that I could break down why it is important for you to turn your closet into your silent partner. Because the one thing that I think we don't realize, or no one has ever told you, is that your closet is a reflection of who you are and where you are in your life right now, and you can change it. But before you can do that, you have to understand why it is your secret partner and why it's a must for it to support you. So if you want to learn more and listen to this five-part episode, private podcast, the silent partner, click the link in this podcast episode and access the podcast. And while you're at it, be sure to let me know what you feel about your closet being your silent partner. Now, let's get back to the video. Now

Step One Edit What Is True

SPEAKER_00 19:32

that I've identified the real problem and the real issues, now that gives me clarity on how to move forward. It has nothing to do with clothes. And now my entire approach of how I used to deal with the problem is shifting and changing. So instead of me going out to buy more clothes, building another Pinterest board, taking 50-11 screenshots, now I can work on doing the first step. Well, there's actually two, three, but we're gonna go. I'm gonna give you the first two steps today. The first step is editing. And I need to edit down what is actually true about me. So you do get to go in there because there are clues and cues as to who you are. Some of it can still work. So now what I have to do is I have to go in and say, does this work? If it doesn't work, it goes over in a pile. If it works, it goes over in another pile. Because what you'll begin to see is you'll begin to also see what you like and what you don't like. You'll also begin to even be able to see how you can begin to, or even for me, take pieces together and begin to play around with them, mix and match them, see what works, see what doesn't work. And even if you mix and match them together, i.e. shopping your closet, then you'll also be able to have fun and then your creative juices will flow.

Step Two Build A Strong Foundation

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Second, you need to build your foundation. Your closet is built of two primary things: your foundation and your personal style. Signature style is third, but it's actually a lot smaller than what you actually think it should be. So, first, after you've edited down to what you can, now I also want you to build your foundation for your wardrobe. Now, this is going to be what I like to call your I hate sometimes using the word, but I'm going to use it capsule wardrobe. That is laying a foundation. That should be about 15% of your wardrobe. And if you want me to go through what you should include in your foundation, let me know in the comments of the video below. And if you're on listening via the actual podcast, Let me know over on Instagram. Now, when you build this foundation, the foundation does one thing. You will always have something to wear. Because the foundation is just that. You need something to build upon. We have never been taught to build upon something when building your style. It's always, oh, well, first let's do a color analysis. Oh, let's edit your closet. Oh, I think this looks good on you. But everything is going to fall apart because you don't have anything to build upon. Think about it as a house. So the foundation never changes. The foundation is the sturdy part of this whole entire process. Once you have that, and before I go on, with the foundation, all of that goes together. So you will always have something to wear. Second, on top of that, is your personal style. And that's where you take everything that you've kind of edited down and begin to add those into your foundational pieces. So now you'll be able to see if you have a blazer left over. You're able to mix and match that into the foundation. Now you're beginning to create outfits. Or say for me, I like sweatpants for some strange reason. I if I like to dress them up and dress them down. So if I'm doing sweatpants, for example, and I want to try something and I want to dress it up, well, I might have a white button down or a striped button down. I can put that on. Or I might have a silk camisole that I can put on over that. And then maybe over that, not over the not over the button down, but I could wear a camisole instead and maybe put a like a cardigan sweater over that or a short sweater duster over that and see how that works. And then with the shoes, it could be a tennis shoe, it could be a loafer, it could even be a heel. Now I'm beginning to play and mix around with the stuff to kind of get my creative juices flowing. Now I am not saying not to find inspiration. By all means, find inspiration, but don't take a whole outfit as an inspiration. Take the pieces of it that you like. I think sometimes we feel that we have to take the entire outfit when maybe the only thing that we like is the jewelry, or we may just like the top. This is how important a foundation is for you. And remember, with this, you are creating something that is personal to you. So that's why I don't want you to lean too heavy or too hard onto inspiration because you want to create something that is uniquely yours. And what ends up happening is if we lean too much on inspiration, then that kind of goes into uniformity again and being assimilating to what everybody else has on. Your personal style should always have you standing out amongst the rest. And we've somehow lost the personal

Start Small And Make It Yours

SPEAKER_00 25:20

impersonal style, including me. So for me, it's what is it that I am doing? Well, I will tell you the first step that I did, and it's noticeable, but I think because I've worn it before, most people it's most people don't consider it that, but I do. It's my hair color. So for me, it's and even for you, find a starting place. It doesn't always have to be clothes, it could be your hair, it could be your glasses, it could be your jewelry, it could be your lip color, but you want to start somewhere, even if it's small. And I've started small. My hair, my lip color, starting to experiment with that a little bit, watches, all of that is part of your personal style, and even sometimes you're leaning into your signature style. And I'll give you this quick thing about signature styles. Your signature style isn't a closet full of clothes, it's certain pieces, which I like to call your wardrobe essentials, and I'll get that into that in later episodes. But right now, I just want you to start with the foundation. I don't want us to make this overcomplicated and overwhelming, which is what happens when we go through this whole whirlwind of a process. Six to three months, three to six months later, we're back on the hamster wheel again. I don't have anything to wear, I don't know what to do, what is this, what is this? We want to now alleviate that. We want to build and create a closet that supports us. Because guess what? Your closet is your silent partner, and the two of you should always be locked in at all times. And when you begin to do that, getting dressed will be fun again. Even if it takes you five or six hours to get dressed, you know, people are like, well, how long is it gonna take you to get dressed? You're not getting dressed, taking a long time to get dressed because you don't know what to wear, but you're taking your time getting dressed now because you enjoy getting dressed again. So I want us to look at our closets a little bit differently. We're so used to looking at them as a storage place where we store clothes to keep them out of the way, but I want you to think about it differently. I want you to begin, one, to have clarity about how you want your closet to reflect you as you're moving into this new chapter. Two, I want you to see it as a support system. And it's a silent support system that will help you even in times when you don't think it will. And that is why I created the Silent Partner Private Podcast, and it will help you get a better understanding of how to build a closet that helps you that will support you. Because you always have to remember this one thing: your closet is a reflection of you. Also, having a closet that supports you is the one thing out of everything that is out of your control that you can control. So if you have a vision of yourself of how you want to look in your current next chapters, guess what? You get to control that, you get to design that, and you get to build it. So that is why I created this five-part episode podcast for you. So be sure to click the link in the description of this episode and access the podcast today.

Trust Yourself First Closing

SPEAKER_00 28:48

So I hope you enjoyed today's podcast, and I hope you had a few moments where you may have gained clarity. At least at a minimum, I hope you were able to find out what it is that you may have lost self-trust in and how it kind of sometimes goes from one thing to another, and how you can begin, especially when it comes to your closet, to begin to build self trust again, to build the wardrobe that you've always wanted for yourself. And I want to leave you with this as always trust yourself first, and your style will follow.